


Saints and Madmen

by Quasar



Category: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Post-Curse of Chalion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 12:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15972524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasar/pseuds/Quasar
Summary: Not long after failing to witness Cazaril's great miracle, Palli follows his friend into a tangle of other people's miracles.





	Saints and Madmen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aceofalmonds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofalmonds/gifts).



> This story is complete but does have tendrils which I hope will lead to another story someday. Thanks to aceofalmonds for a generous and open-ended request that helped me figure out what my subconscious wanted to do with these characters!

The March dy Palliar sat in dappled shade at the edge of a peaceful courtyard with a page of scribbled poetry in his lap, and watched his friend sleep. He found himself contemplating how he had come here, to the outer eddies of miracles without quite treading into their compass. Cazaril had journeyed to the very center of that maelstrom and suffered terribly for it, yet now he rested with a curve of quiet joy upon his lips. What, done differently, would have put Palli on that same path - and was he relieved or regretful that he had not followed it?

On the Daughter of Spring's own feast day, Palli had let Caz go to a prayer vigil without him, while he was analyzing troop movements and the latest intelligence with the Provincar dy Baocia. The latest intelligence proved to be rather too late, and suddenly the Provincar's palace was under attack. But in the midst of the muddled fray, Palli saw Royse Bergon leading the Royesse - no, the Royina - to safety along with Lady Betriz, so surely Caz must be safe with them.

Then one of Bergon's men reported that no, Caz had stayed back to guard their escape, and then they all heard a clap of thunder, and soon fleeing men were screaming that the Goddess had struck the Chancellor with a bolt of lightning from a clear sky! But the fighting in the streets wasn't over and there was still work for Palli to do, and he heard that someone had called for Betriz and Iselle to join Cazaril, so that meant that Caz was safe.

The next wave of rumors were more alarming - Cazaril was dead along with the Chancellor - no, not dead but he was dying, and he had called the ladies to say goodbye. Palli saw an ebb in the tide of fighting and told Ferda to take charge while he ran back to the gate of the courtyard. What he saw then shook his world to its foundations. The Chancellor's men were felled like trees, some dead and some weeping in terror, all stretching away from the center of the courtyard where Cazaril knelt amid a swarm of concerned men and women and boys.

Caz had a sword impaled all the way through him, right through his gut. Front to back, of course - he would never turn his back upon an enemy. He knelt there, serene and even smiling, while a man reached forth to cautiously pull the sword free. And then, despite the helpers rushing in with bandages and steadying hands, despite pleas and prayers from the new Royina and her lovely handmaiden, Cazaril toppled to the ground.

Another Cazaril miracle. Another Cazaril death. And Palli had been just around the corner, unaware, as it seemed he had been for all the others.

He was at least present for the rather slower unfolding of the next phase of miracle. The bandages that had been pressed to Cazaril's wounds were soaked not with blood but with a clear, perfumed fluid. (Strips of those cut-up bandages were being sold around the city - Palli had obtained a bit of one himself for agreeing to let the enterprising seller continue his business, so long as it was done quietly and did not disturb any royal parties or convalescents.) Palli had helped to carry Caz away on a litter, semi-conscious and smiling blissfully, and by nightfall Caz was sitting up and talking and failing to go into an agonized mortal decline. He had no fever to speak of, and after a few days he was even allowed to eat, and totter out to the courtyard, and doze in the gentle spring sunshine a few yards from where he had so nearly died. Or actually died and came back, according to his own telling.

Palli had asked of the Royina that he be allowed to stay with Caz, and care for him, and witness this aftermath of miracle. He didn't mean to be parted from his friend until all signs of the uncanny had faded, however long that might take. But he was still left with the question, how close to Godly doings did he truly want to be? Rubbing elbows with the celestial had left Caz scarred and hunched, yet full of secret joy. Palli had witnessed many a man with lesser wounds which granted only pain and fear and resentment. If it was divine influence that brought Caz this inner peace in the midst of fleshly insults, perhaps Palli should seek it out. He was no pious divine clutching a hymnal and praying five times in a day, but neither was Caz.

He glanced down at the paper in his lap and the crabbed handwriting which somehow only lent more shiverous weight to the strange words it outlined:

_Throw open the gate of my soul_  
_press wide its rigid frame_  
_linger on my threshold so that I_  
_exist both within and without -  
_

The wrought-iron gate to the courtyard fell back against its post with a _clang!_

Palli looked up with a start, then rose hastily as the Provincar of Baocia entered the courtyard with a squad of guards falling back from his gesture, and the small judge that Caz had inexplicably named a "colleague" trailing behind.

Dy Baocia's determined stride slowed as he saw that Caz was dozing, and he murmured softly to Palli's respectful bow, "Is he . . ."

But Caz was already stirring, and sighing, and opening his eyes to smile - first at the judge, and more belatedly at the high lord. Caz had never had much respect for social rank, even before the Goddess turned his soul inside-out.

And apparently the Provincar was similarly confused about rank, for he lowered his head briefly before beginning, "My Lord Cazaril, we have come to seek your opinion on a matter of - well, the import is unclear to _me_ , but I am told that it is grave." He glanced toward the judge.

Palli woke to his own responsibilities. "The Royina has expressly forbidden Lord Cazaril from any form of work. I'm certain that would apply equally to working for the province as the realm."

Caz was shaking his head, clearly already forming objections, but it was the mousy little judge who stepped forward and said, "And what of the work of the Gods? It is on their account that we have come to speak to Saint Cazaril."

So that was how this man was considered a colleague. Palli saw Cazaril's eyes light up and knew that there was no stopping this consultation, whatever it was. But he did persuade them, when they would have trooped inside to some stuffy office, that Caz was already comfortable here, and the Provincar's guards could certainly enforce any needed privacy. While chairs were brought, he restacked Cazaril's papers and uncovered the platter of breads and cheeses to sustain Caz through the talking.

"We have been engaged," said the apparently saintly judge - Paligine? Pagiline? No, Paginine, that was it - "in pronouncing judgment on the men who lately raised arms against the Provincar and the Royina. By the Royina's mercy, those who marched in the late Chancellor dy Jironal's train but took no active part in the fighting are released to return to their homes on condition that they do not take up arms again unless by royal decree. The common men known to have engaged in the fighting will work in the quarries or road gangs for no less than two years. The officers are being judged individually depending on how close they were in dy Jironal's counsels. One of them - well, two, really -"

"It's Captain dy Maram," put in dy Baocia. "He was in my service, and I sent him to Valenda to serve my mother, and she sent him to Cardegoss with you, Lord Cazaril, and Iselle and young Teidez."

"I know him," said Caz flatly. "He took a bribe from Dondo dy Jironal to conspire in the murder of Teidez's tutor."

"Is that proven?" the judge asked quickly.

Caz frowned. "Of the bribe, I am certain - it was an emerald from Lord Dondo's own hand, which he offered to me earlier and I refused. I cannot attest to precisely what the jewel bought, if it was participation or only a lapse in protection, or whether the captain understood that Ser dy Sanda would die as a result. I did not see the man from shortly before the death of Royse Teidez until he turned up here fighting alongside Martou dy Jironal."

"Still wearing my colors, and using them to confuse or suborn some of my men," dy Baocia added.

"He held my sword arm while Martou ran me through," Caz reflected mildly.

"What!" Palli thundered. "Surely that is - that _must_ be cause for execution, whatever else went before!"

"Indeed," said Paginine wryly, "save that the man is god-touched."

Cazaril's eyes widened. "You are certain? It is not merely an echo from the passage of the Goddess?"

"Not an echo, but an abiding light. Dimmer than that which you recently blazed forth, but clear nonetheless. And it is not the light of the Daughter, but of my own God."

"How can that be?" Caz breathed, but he was frowning in thought, already putting the pieces together. "I sensed Him, or some other member of that Family, just at the edge of my perception. Perhaps . . . the Father reached through the doorway that my Lady had created to do her work?"

He meant himself, Palli realized. The doorway the Goddess had created was Cazaril himself, and she had made it by leading him to his death, repeatedly.

Paginine was expanding on the theme. "It is possible that being close witness to such an event might have made the man susceptible to the influence of the Gods, even if his soul was closed to Them before."

"What does the fellow have to say for himself?" Palli demanded.

"Nothing of significance, or nothing that can be understood," dy Baocia told them. "He is quite mad. Gibbering and weeping, cowering and covering his head."

"So were quite a few who witnessed that event," Palli noted. 

"And some of them bore the echo of God-light, as well," said Paginine. "But the light faded and they calmed within some hours. Not so for this man."

"If he can't speak sense, then we have no way of knowing what the God has called him to do," Caz mused. "Unless He has spoken to you?"

Paginine considered a moment. "Not spoken, but . . . it was an odd series of coincidences that brought me within sight of the man to begin with. I was not meant to take part in these tribunals, originally."

Caz nodded. "The God wished you to see him and recognize his sainthood before sentence was pronounced. Therefore, He must wish the man's life to be spared."

"Spared!" Palli spluttered. "Sainthood! He is a common thug!"

Cazaril sighed. "He _was_ a common thug, but now he is something more. Madness is no bar to doing the work of the Gods - in fact, it might make it easier."

"There is another point. You mentioned a ring, did you not?" Paginine asked. "It seems to have melted, and burned his hand quite badly, and the remains are now fused to his flesh, impossible to remove short of maiming him."

Cazaril's maimed left hand twitched in his lap. "What of the emerald?"

"Fallen out, I think. But the remainder . . ."

"Yes?"

"I saw the shape of a wolf's head in the metal. I am not certain if it was apparent to others."

Caz nodded. "A sign that the Father's hand is upon the man."

"But to spare him would be a gross failing of justice!" dy Baocia objected.

"Not if the very God of justice wills it so," Caz pointed out, before the judge could speak for his own God. 

Dy Baocia went on, "And what then of the second man?"

"What second man?" Palli asked.

"A pikeman by the name of Brabanos, who held Lord Cazaril's other arm," Paginine explained. "The two of them were jailed together."

"Is he also God-touched?" asked Caz.

"No, nor is he mad, but he does seem better at understanding dy Maram's ramblings than anyone else. He also claims that he tried to stop dy Jironal from slaying you."

"Not precisely," said Caz. "Well, perhaps . . ." He winced at the memory.

"Do not think on it if it pains you," Palli said quickly, remembering the healing divine's lectures on the delicate state of Cazaril's digestion.

Caz waved this warning aside. "The captain gripped me first, and then the other soldier - Brabanos? - wearing dy Jironal's colors. Martou and I exchanged words, then he drew his sword and ordered them both to hold me fast. The soldier said something - I believe he said that it would be murder, but not loudly enough or swiftly enough to stop his lord."

Palli snorted, above the appalled lurch of his own heart. "A charge of murder would not have stopped him." He did not look toward the spot just beyond the fountain, cleaned of any stain except in memory.

"He raised the sword at first, as if to decapitate all three of us. Both men ducked away, and then Martou lowered the sword to make his thrust instead. I think - yes, I do believe Brabanos was releasing his grasp upon me before the point struck."

"Yet you didn't break free?" Palli asked.

"It all happened so quickly," said the man with the most impeccable battle timing Palli had ever seen.

"Must we release both, in that case?" dy Baocia wondered. "It's poor justice to set the guiltier party free, and send the lesser to hang."

"A sentence of sainthood is not precisely setting the man free," Caz put in dryly. 

"Perhaps a road gang for them both, alongside the common men?" dy Baocia suggested. 

Palli remembered that when he had thought his friend dead, Caz was actually being marched away with the common soldiers they had both commanded, sold into Roknari slavery. He shivered at the thought.

Caz said decisively, "Let the Honorable Paginine pronounce the judgment."

"Oh, my lord, I am not -" Paginine stopped, and his eyes went strange and distant. "Yes," he said in an odd tone. "That will do very well."

Caz's eyes were not distant now, but sharp and gleaming. "And I believe I should like to be there to witness it."

Palli argued, of course, but Caz pointed out that they had discussed the possibility of his travel to Cardegoss - " _You_ have been discussing it," Palli corrected darkly - and it would be as well to see how he fared over a shorter distance. He would not consent to a litter but rode in Baocia's coach wincing at every lurch over the cobbles. Palli and one of the Provincar's guards helped Caz up the shallow steps with firm hands beneath his elbows - but not, Palli took care to ensure, gripping his arms. By the time Caz was seated at one side of the courtroom, Palli trusted that he had taken no injury but was feeling enough pain to accept advice more meekly, at least for a little while.

The business of the court was apparently at a lull, for there were just a few clerks at the front shuffling papers, while the only watching citizens appeared to be some older and poorer folk who might have no better option for entertainment on a spring day. But one of these sat up sharply at the sight of Caz and leaned over to talk to her neighbor, who left in haste. By the time more court officials were bustling in the front and shooing away the clerks of previous cases, a wider array of observers were filing in by twos and threes and whispering excitedly to one another.

Palli's own dealings with courts had primarily been the small doings of sleepy Palliar, where he left most of the conduct to whatever divines of the Father's Order had been assigned there for the year. He was struck to see how much this larger court resembled a theater before the play began, or a temple before holiday services. And soon the audience - or congregation - quite filled the room.

The Provincar came through a side door trailed by another clerk, clasping hands and nodding at greetings and brushing aside requests for his attention. The murmurs redoubled as he took a seat beside Caz and showed him a document. Craning over their shoulders, Palli realized it was a written account of what Caz had told the judge about the captain's bribe-taking and the scene in the courtyard. Caz accepted an inked pen from the clerk and scribbled a small annotation in the margin before signing the document. The clerk carried it away and the Provincar settled back in his humble seat.

A quartet of guards in Father's black ushered the accused parties in through a barred door and prodded them to stand in the dock. The younger, a weedy fellow with a youth's spotty chin but the crooked nose of a hardened campaigner, looked too cowed to cause any problems. The older, presumably the Baocian captain stripped of his green-and-black uniform, had no interest in the proceedings. He gazed curiously about the room, bent to pick up a stray leaf from the floor and study it, tried to wander out of the dock only to be pressed back by the guards' batons, and finally sat down on the floor and began pulling off his boots. The younger soldier tried to keep him in line with hissed commands and elbow nudges, rather like a mother with a misbehaving toddler.

Palli glanced at Caz, who was watching these antics closely. His expression was less open and sunny than it had been these past days, but not so pinched-shut as Palli had seen it for much of the past year. Caz seemed interested but not especially angry or troubled at the sight of two who had helped to cause him such pain.

Two berobed advocates entered, followed by the unassuming Paginine. All took their places, and a hush came over the crowded room as the judge called the court to order. Paginine's voice filled the room clearly, yet he made this proceeding sound as routine as any matter of adjudicating inheritances or property lines, interesting only to those involved.

"We resume the case of Captain Vilar dy Maram and Moriz Brabanos, accused of abetting the late Martou dy Jironal in crimes of sedition and murder. Some evidence was heard in the case this morning, and while the court was adjourned I received additional information from the Castillar dy Cazaril, witnessed by the Provincar dy Baocia and March dy Palliar."

There was a rustling of surprise at that, and heads turned around the room to look at the three of them. But Paginine continued in the same monotone, "That evidence has been entered into the record and shared with the advocates for both parties. I shall now pronounce judgment in this case."

Paginine fell silent, and remained unspeaking long enough that the crowd stirred and glanced at one another, and craned once again to check if Caz or dy Baocia were making some signal. But there was only the hush of growing expectation, a thrum in the air like a garden full of bees.

Then Paginine stood from his chair, and somehow . . . _intensified._ His gray hair seemed fuller, his bland features sharper, and his dusty black robes were suddenly dark as a moonless midnight, with swirling sparks at the hems. He was no taller and yet Palli would not have been surprised if his head had brushed the ceiling - or shattered it. 

In a resonant voice that was at once Paginine's and Other, he announced, "These two shall walk forth from this city bound by no shackles save My will. Vilar dy Maram, you are condemned to take no employment and earn no coin. Your only food and shelter shall be those granted by the mercy of others. You may bide no more than three nights in any building or bed, before you must continue onward at my bidding. Maris Brabanos, your burden is to accompany him and guard him from what harm you may. If you part from him willingly, you will face the retribution of fate. Yet remain together until the closing of the Chaos Gate, and your sentence will then be lifted."

Paginine stopped, and shrank and faded, and fell back gasping into the judge's chair. There was silence for another heartbeat, and then it seemed every voice in the chamber sounded at once, exclaiming and questioning and wondering.

"What does it mean -"

"Chaos Gate? Is that until the end of time?"

"But he mistook the name -"

"Why did he say -"

"That was a God, there could be no mistake!"

Shaken, Palli turned to check on Caz, and found him gaping at Paginine with tears upon his cheeks. Palli's own sense of awe was beginning to curdle into confusion and a chill of foreboding, but Cazaril's shocked expression was turning slowly to wondrous delight.

"We are blessed," Caz breathed. "An avatar of the Father, here before us all - Palli, you saw that, did you not? You saw what I saw?"

"Yes?" Palli ventured. "I think so, at least. It was -" _terrifying,_ he thought but could not say so before Cazaril's spreading grin.

"We should go to him."

Palli glanced over the heads of the milling crowd to the front of the courtroom, where the advocates and clerks were surrounding Paginine. The judge was standing, and brushing aside their concerns, and heading for the door to his offices. He glanced briefly at the two men he had just condemned, who were being herded out the other door, and flinched as if the sight burned his eyes.

"Paginine is well," Palli told Caz. "You can speak to him later. He must have a lot of paperwork to do, after that." Was there an official form for _miraculous judgment?_ he wondered.

"Yes," dy Baocia murmured. "I should -" He looked around at the astonished and babbling crowd, and at his own guards attempting to reach him. "We should all return to the palace," he said firmly. "Come, Lord Cazaril, we will help you to the door."

Many of the people wanted to importune Caz with questions, but he merely smiled at them all and repeated, "Yes, I saw. Yes, that was the God appearing before us. We are blessed. We are all blessed," over and over as they swam through the eddies of people.

By the time they reached the front of the courthouse, Palli and a guard were carrying Caz in a sitting position over their clasped arms. Fortunately the coach was pulled up to the bottom step, and they settled inside as the stream of people from the doors continued, all hurrying to tell family or friends of the miracle - another miracle! - they had just been witness to.

Palli watched them, and thought of people paying to peer through the palace gates at Cazaril, and scraps of perfumed bandages selling for the cost of semi-precious gems (and mysteriously multiplying until they might have swathed an army). "You should invest in more inns," he said to the Provincar as the coach began to creep along the teeming street.

"What's that?"

"At least three more inns, I should think," Palli mused. "And taverns."

"Baocia does not see so many travellers as all that," the Provincar objected.

"It will. Two Gods, two miracles, scarcely a week apart and witnessed by so many - this will be the destination for many holy pilgrimages." Taryoon, as the provincial capital, was serviced by good roads and safe for travel, which so many holy destinations were not. "Next year at this time, the city will be as crowded as it was for the royal wedding, if not more so." Palli wondered if he should scrape some of his own money together for a part-interest in one of the new ventures. Or perhaps he could pick a posting-house that already existed along the road leading here, and offer to help them expand.

"We are blessed," was all Caz had to say, leaning back against the cushioned seat with a smile of bliss punctuated by grimaces as the coach heaved over a bump.

"What do you think the judge meant with those words about the Chaos Gate?" asked dy Baocia, a question that Palli preferred not to contemplate too intensely. He thought, on the whole, that he had his answer about how closely he wished to be involved in divine doings. Just around the corner seemed close enough.

Caz let out a strained chuckle. "That puzzle," he said with a hint of smugness, "is not my task to find out."


End file.
